{"id":1421005,"date":"2022-04-05T22:59:48","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T02:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1421005"},"modified":"2022-04-05T22:59:51","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T02:59:51","slug":"matt-gaetz-grills-defense-secretary-about-military-wokeism-in-fiery-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/matt-gaetz-grills-defense-secretary-about-military-wokeism-in-fiery-exchange\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Gaetz Grills Defense Secretary About Military Wokeism in Fiery Exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmatt-gaetz-grills-defense-secretary-about-military-wokeism-in-fiery-exchange%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1421005&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) grilled Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on military wokeness, prompting a fiery exchange between the two during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, Gaetz demanded an answer on why the Pentagon\u2019s National Defense University, which is funded by U.S. taxpayers, hosted a lecture in February on why socialism was the answer to combatting China.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>The lecture, first reported by Breitbart News on February 11, was given by French socialist Thomas Piketty to members of the military\u2019s future top leaders attending the school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecretary Austin, why should American taxpayers fund lectures at the National Defense University that promote socialism as a strategy to combat China?\u201d Gaetz asked.<\/p>\n<p>Austin responded, \u201cThe National Defense University is an academic institution, and I don\u2019t know of any \u2014 of any such lecture.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>Gaetz called that response \u201csurprising\u201d since it was widely reported. He added, \u201cWould you agree that embracing socialism is not an effective strategy to combat China?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Austin said he \u201ccertainly\u201d did not agree with \u201cembracing\u2019 socialism before top Democrat and Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) tried to interrupt the questioning. Under further questioning, Austin again denied embracing socialism.<\/p>\n<p>Gaetz asked Austin why the Pentagon should be funded at President Biden\u2019s request of $773 billion when its leadership had blown calls on strategy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou guys told us that Russia couldn\u2019t lose. You told us that the Taliban couldn\u2019t immediately win. And so I guess I\u2019m wondering, what in the $773 billion that you\u2019re requesting today is going to help you make assessments that are accurate in the face of so many blown calls?\u201d Gaetz asked Austin.<\/p>\n<p>Austin first tied to demur, saying, \u201cYou\u2019ve seen how the budget matches our strategy, and so I\u2019ll let that speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>However, things escalated from there. Gaetz also pointed out how the U.S. was also behind China and Russia on the development of hypersonic missiles. Austin asked him how he made that assessment.<\/p>\n<p>Gaetz retorted, \u201cI make that assessment because Russia actually used one. By the way, your own people brief us that we are behind and that China is winning. Are you aware of the briefings we get on hypersonics?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Austin answered testily, \u201cI am certainly aware of briefings that we provide to Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gaetz brought up China\u2019s bullying of Taiwan and North Korea\u2019s record missile testing over the past year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile everyone else in the world seems to be developing capabilities and being more strategic, we got time to embrace critical race theory at West Point, to embrace socialism at the National Defense University, to do mandatory pronoun training,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>After Austin got defensive and accused Gaetz of being embarrassed by his country and military, Gaetz fired back, \u201cOh, no, no, I\u2019m embarrassed by your leadership. I am not embarrassed for my country. I wish we were not losing to China.\u201d\u00a0He added:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>That is so disgraceful that you would sit here and conflate your failures with the failures of the uniformed servicemembers. You guys said that \u2014 that Russia would overrun Ukraine in 36 days. You said that the Taliban would be kept at bay for months. You totally blew those calls.\u00a0And maybe we would be better at them if the National Defense University actually worked a little more on strategy and a little less on wokeism.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI saw that the Obama administration tried to destroy our military by starving it of resources. And it seems the Biden administration is trying to destroy our military by force-feeding it wokeism. I yield back,\u201d Gaetz concluded.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Follow Breitbart News\u2019s Kristina Wong on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/kristina_wong\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristinawongreporting\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) grilled Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on military wokeness, prompting a fiery exchange between the two during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday. Specifically, Gaetz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1421005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1421005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1421005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1421005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}